Terrain at a worksite commonly undergoes geographic alteration by machines through, for example, digging, dozing, grading, leveling, or other excavation processes. In some applications, it may be beneficial to map the terrain as it changes. For instance, it may be advantageous to map the terrain for use in planning future excavation work at the worksite, or for determining productivity and/or profitability of the machines. Having an accurate and complete terrain map may also assist an operator in controlling the machine or, in some applications, facilitate autonomous or semi-autonomous control of the machines in navigating through the worksite.
One system for mapping terrain is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2014/0012404 (the '404 publication) of Taylor et al. that published on Jan. 9, 2014. The '404 publication describes a system for machine cut planning. The system creates a three-dimensional map of a worksite by tracking the movement of a machine as it travels over the worksite. Based on the map and known parameters of the machine, the system then plans an excavation path within a dozing slot for the machine. As the machine completes the excavation path, the map is updated (based on tracked movements of the machine) to reflect changes made to a surface contour of the slot.
Although the system of the '404 publication may map worksite terrain adequately for some slot dozing applications, it may lack the precision necessary for other applications. In particular, the system may not track the material moved by the machine out of the slot if the machine does not traverse over the material after it is moved. In other words, this material, once moved out of the slot, may disappear from the electronic map. If unaccounted for, this unmapped material could be problematic for future path planning and autonomous, semi-autonomous, or remote machine control.
The disclosed system is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.